Pungo is a rural village in southern Virginia Beach, Va., that serves as a small commercial hub and community focal point for nearby rural and suburban areas of Virginia Beach.
The village is not independent of the city of Virginia Beach. It is best known as the home of the annual Pungo Strawberry Festival and as the gateway to rural farming communities in southern Virginia Beach.
Colloquially, Pungo also refers to areas surrounding the core village, including rural farming communities that were once within a local voting district called the Pungo Borough. Today, Pungo and nearby rural communities are contained within the Princess Anne District.
Overview
Pungo is situated at and around the intersection of Indian River and Princess Anne roads. Princess Anne Road is the primary north-south road through the Rural Area of Virginia Beach. Though called a village, Pungo is not independently incorporated, and it is part of the city of Virginia Beach.
The Virginia Beach Transition Area, a designated section of the city roughly between suburban and rural communities, is to the north of the intersection and extends northward ton the city’s Green Line. Most of Virginia Beach’s Rural Area is south of the intersection. Pungo is considered the gateway to southern Virginia Beach and the city’s Rural Area, approximately 145 square miles of land, wetlands and water that comprises roughly half of the city’s total area.
Pungo is the site of agricultural and community events, including the Pungo Strawberry Festival over Memorial Day Weekend and an annual Christmas tree lighting in December. Virginia Beach is the leading producer of strawberries in Virginia, and the festival celebrates that crop.
There is no known formal neighborhood association for the area. There is a business and property owners association called the Pungo Village Landowners Association, Inc., formed in 2005.
Pungo is within the former Princess Anne County, and the rural communities sought of Indian River Road are still today sometimes referred to as the “county.” The modern city of Virginia Beach formed in 1963 with the merger of Princess Anne County and the Virginia Beach resort.
Colloquially, Pungo can refer to rural areas around the village, areas from Pungo south to Back Bay or even the entire rural area aside from Blackwater. It also may refer to areas within a former local voting borough called the Pungo Borough.
History
There is uncertainty about there source of Pungo’s name, and some stories, lacking primary sources, seem apocryphal. In 1709, land likely in the Back Bay area is referred to as the “Indian Reservation of Pungo,” but there is little information about the source of this name, according to Barbara Murden Henley’s Glimpses of Down County History: Southern Princess Anne County.
In 2006, the Urban Land Institute in Washington, D.C., released an advisory report called Pungo Crossing, Virginia Beach, Virginia: Strategies for a Rural Gateway. The report was funded by the city of Virginia Beach after a request by the Pungo Village Landowners Association for a study of the village. Franklin A. Martin, president of Martin Community Development, LLC, of Boise, Idaho, served as chairperson of the panel that issued the report. Recommendations included maintaining the character of the village while creating a stronger gateway to the Rural Area and encouraging additional commercial uses there. The recommendations were never formally adopted.
Sources:
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City of Virginia Beach Comprehensive Plan [Nov. 20, 2018]
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Henley, Barbara Murden, ed. Glimpses of Down County History: Southern Princess Anne County [2013]
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Urban Land Institute, Pungo Crossing, Virginia Beach, Virginia: Strategies for a Rural Gateway [June 16, 2006]
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Virginia State Coorporation Clerk’s Information System [Aug. 30, 2020 access]